Cameron Satterfield Blog

Cameron Satterfield came and spoke to our class on Monday, April 14. I thought it was very interesting how large his career change was after graduating college. He currently is the Director of Public Information for the St. Charles County Health Department, but before that he worked at a television station in Omaha, Nebraska. I would not have thought that going from fast paced, deadline oriented news and televisions stations to sitting at your desk and writing news releases about health issues would have been a typical career flow for a communications person. However, he enjoys working a normal 9 to 5 job and working at his own pace instead of getting up at 2 am to do the morning news broadcast.
Cameron’s job entails writing news releases, writing 2 new letters a year, updating the website, and taking public opinion questions. He said the average salary for his position (he did not say his actual salary) was around $50,000 and depends on experience. He says the government normally pays less than a corporate business.
Cameron was highly involved in communications in high school and college. In high school he was involved in Radio Explorers and had several communications internships in college. He advised us, as college students, to do the same. The more experience the better. He said the most important skill we can develop is writing because just about every job in some way or another involves some writing. He encouraged us that even though our beginning salaries might be low if we preserve there is room to move up.